Dale Thomas:  

One summer in southern Spain we continued our quest to discover secrets to leading long lives and uncovered a great addition, the 4 hr lunch break. We swiftly integrated this new habit with our new found Italian philosophy "é tutto bene," meaning, it's all good. Of course, there are exceptions. On the Costa del Sol Spanish beaches all naked bodies aren't created equal, or in other words, it's NOT all good. We've learned so much on our trips abroad. Driving for example; Cole my 16 yr old is now solo driving. Back in his first week of permit driving he left his carbon footprint on our garage door (think big feet, small pedals). Applying our Italian philosophy we decided hey, it could have been a much bigger accident and he saw the damage done going just a few miles per hour, it's all good. Tailgating however is totally different. In Indiana, interstate tailgaters evoke feelings of road rage. In France tailgating means I'm going to eventually crash down the road a bit when I light a cigarette, so back off. In Italy, tailgating simply means I need to hurry. "You go slowly because you have time, I go fast because I need to hurry, the tour bus almost hit us when I passed on a steep hill because it's bigger, it's all good." My story seems kind of long but 59 yrs is a long time and as luck would have it filled with a lot of life. Plus you have to humor me because I do want to become a writer. So stop reading if you get bored but there's some good stuff at the end. Send me a note either thru Classmates or directly at dethomas3 at egix.net (Classmates won't let you place a properly formatted email address in the story). If I don't remember you, I'll make something nice up.It would be good to hear how you've been doing. First semester of sophomore year (1968) my Mom decided to move back to Clarksville IN when my parents divorced. I didn't stay long but returned after graduation with one of my best friends from Indianapolis to live with my grandparents in Clarksville and work at Alcoa Aluminum in Louisville. Life is funny though. During that summer at the Greentree Mall, I met a Clarksville HS girl who became my first post high school love and it carried on through freshman year of college. We had met during my semester at Clarksville. As destiny would have it, we attended different colleges and it didn't work out. Here's the life learning point. While I got kind of bent out of shape about the breakup, I look back and see the irony of the situation because ten years later I married a woman that lived 50 yards from my front door and once broke up with a girl that moved to the south side of Indianapolis because it was too far to drive. My buddies and I had a term for this... a Geographical Undesirable. Whoever said "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" never had 18 year old hormones and a girlfriend two hours drive away. I met and hung out with some great people in high school and thought I knew everyone. At first, Classmates seemed kind of hokey but the stories are incredible. It just shows how many paths there are in life. However, I'm amazed at how many other interesting people in our class at NHS that I didn't know. I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Hey, I remember them" or "Wow, I have no idea who that is." The McGilvery's Pub gatherings are also fun. Alcohol, grandé nachos supreme and a gigantic artery clogging breaded tenderloin do tend to loosen people up, in a good way of course. After college, I discovered Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking and it helped shape the way I think. I wish I had read it in high school. Bad things happen to all of us but the trick is to not let the speed bumps of life define you. How you interpret the scrapes and bruises is between you and your therapist. The stories I read and write about myself provide me an opportunity to reflect and see that everything happens for a reason. The relationship break-ups that stomped on your heart when you're 18 seem kind of silly when I look back and see that I didn't get married until I was 30. Ultimately, these experiences help you empathize with your boy when he gets dumped. You remember your HS apprehensions so you push them to try out for a sport so they have no regrets even though they are devastated when they are cut. I was cut from basketball and football over the years due to my size. So, I turned to golf and both my knees have never regretted it. However, one of the most important love experiences is that you know how to deal with "end of the world as I know it" feelings. I'm not even going to mention the eye roll. For me, I loved every bit of High School and College. After writing this story for Classmates I've tried to put my finger on why. The best I can figure is that I just liked the carefree lifestyle of learning, being around the closed society of 18 to 25 yr olds searching for meaning and making lifetime friends. At Purdue in 1971 we had 30,000 students, 10,000 women and 20,000 men. To most, the dating ratios seemed rather daunting. Some friends at IU poked fun at the perceived lack of potential female companionship. However, unlike myself, 19,289 of those men wore a pocket protector, slide rule on their belt (yes, I said slide rule), never dated a woman, and talked engineering jibber jabber non-stop. College wise, life was good at Purdue West Lafayette except for the 46 hours I took as a senior. I sort of lost track of my applicable credit hours in the first three years because I switched majors too many times. Another contributing factor was that I didn't attend a class that met before 10am or during Cub home games. Plus my scholarship was only for 4 yrs so money (or the future lack thereof) was a motivator. In that last semester I did bend my principles and attended a 7:30am electrical engineeri...Expand for more